History

Early Years

Charest started his American comic book career at DC Comics, working on various titles such as Darkstars. He continued to provide covers for The Outsiders, Batman, and Detective Comics, a specialty that he soon became known for. In 1993 Charest illustrated WildC.A.T.s: Destiny’s Hand, which led to multiple issues of the WildC.A.T.s monthly series. Soon after, he became the regular artist, working with prominent creators James Robinson and Alan Moore. He ended his run on the series in 1996 with issue #31, but returned to contribute on issue #50, the finale of the title.

The series was re-launched as Wildcats, teaming Charest with writer Scott Lobdell. Charest’s speed on the series led to his replacement by Sean Phillips. He would later leave Wildstorm and Homage Studios to pursue a project in .

There and Back Again

Charest made the move to to work on a Metabarons graphic novel for Humanoid Publishing. He intended to paint the entire novel, a decision that would hinder his progress yet again. Humanoid chose Serbian artist Zoran Janjetov to replace Charest on the project.

By 2007 Charest had returned to the , in . He would continue to provide cover art for various comic books, most notably on Star Wars comics for Dark Horse and Captain : The Chosen for Marvel Comics. During this time, Charest would also run a comic strip on his MSN group, Spacegirl. The series was collected and released (self-published) as a hardcover edition in 2008.

Style

Charest notes many artists as an influence, such as Mike Mignola, Adam Hughes, and Brian Bolland among others. He prefers to forgo sketching when he draws, mostly due to his own impatience. Also, in part he enjoys the spontaneous nature of how artwork develops. Charest dislikes to reference real life items or people, unless the piece he is working on calls for it, such as guns or licensed characters. An example of this is the cover to Star Trek: The Next Generation – Embrace the Wolf.

Charest as stated that the time it takes to finish a picture depends on many things, such as how fast an editor needs the project finished, or even how much he is being paid. Because of these variables, Charest believes that it is not feasible to be a regular artist on a monthly series.